


Chains

by mistysinkat



Series: Prompts and Drabbles [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5021821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistysinkat/pseuds/mistysinkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yaara discovers some unsettling news about what she would have been had she been born under the Qun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chains

**Author's Note:**

> In a strange twist, I decided to write something that didn't involve Cullen AT ALL. Huh.

Yaara and Iron Bull sat in a silence that was uncharacteristic for both of them as the weight of things left unsaid grew, ominous and unnerving.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not tonight. For once, the Chargers were nowhere in sight. She had him all to herself – she already knew him as a mercenary and leader, but tonight was her chance to get to know him as a person. To find out just what made The Iron Bull tick.

… and maybe find out just what it was that drew her to him in the first place.

_The Qun,_  she’d thought,  _I can get him talking about the Qun._

But it had been Bull who’d started the conversation. It seemed he had wanted to know about her, too.

“How’d you end up Vashoth, anyway?” he asked easily as he lounged comfortably in his chair.

“I… well, I was never anything else, I suppose. I was born outside the Qun. My parents lived under it when they were young, though they can’t have been too happy. They ran away, after all,” she replied, tucking a strand of shining white hair behind her ear.

“Ran away? Just like that?” Bull asked, keeping his tone light and non-commital. His face was relaxed, almost bored, but his eye was sharp and trained on the Inquisitor’s face.

“The details aren’t clear. They died shortly after I was born…”

“On a Vashoth rampage?”

“No, Bull, they were farmers,” Yaara flared at him. Her golden eyes flashed as she continued, “Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t go marauding up and down the countryside, bathing fields in the blood of children just because they left the Qun.”

She paused, and her tone softened as she continued, “They grew corn and potatoes and had goats, and one night, they were killed by bandits looking for food… or so I was told.”

“So you were  _told_ ,” Bull repeated pointedly, satisfied that he’d made his point.

“Yes, so I was told, and so I  _believe_ ,” she answered, just as pointedly. “I survived somehow. The neighbors from the next farm down saw the flames and found me under my mother’s body. They’re the ones who raised me. They taught me how to read, how to watch out for myself in the world, and how to be a good person.”

“But they didn’t teach you your  _role_ ,” he countered, and she thought she could almost hear a note of sadness in his deep voice.

“My  _role_?” she replied archly.

“Everyone has a purpose. Everyone has a job to do,” he raised his hands, palms up, and shrugged. Clearly, he thought at least this much should have been obvious to her.  

“And what, then, is my role? What noble purpose was robbed from me the day my parents left Par Vollen?”

Bull shifted in his chair, no longer comfortable. A shadow of unease skittered across his face before it was once again unreadable.

There was something there that he didn’t want her to know. For a moment, she thought maybe that was enough. Maybe she really didn’t want to know what it was he was holding back. He clearly thought she was… suspect. She may not have been the mindless berserker he’d once accused her of being, but his silence made her think that he still didn’t trust the Tal Vashoth to whom he’d found himself pledged. Even worse, it seemed that he pitied her because she’d lived without the Qun all her life.

_That’s it, then. That’s what he thinks of me. Now I know, and I can just get up and go talk it over with Dorian and feel perfectly fine and completely normal tomorrow. No more sneaky glances when he’s not looking. No more wondering about maybes. I’ll just unass this seat and be on my way…_

But her traitorous mouth had other designs.

“No, you’re gonna tell me. Who was I meant to be, other than Yaara Adaar? What’s my  _role_  under the Qun?”

His sigh was heavy as he regarded her.

“Saarebas,” he finally said, looking away.

“Saarebas?” Yaara cut her bright eyes over to Iron Bull’s face. The word meant nothing to her.  

“Yeah, under the Qun, you’d be Saarebas,” he stated simply and pulled a long drink from his stein of ale. Too long.

_He’s stalling_ , Yaara thought, bewildered. She squirmed under the pressure of the quiet that had fallen between them.

“It means ‘dangerous thing,’” he finally explained, tone oddly heavy to her ears, “It’s what we call mages.”

“So, pretty much what Fereldans and Templars think of me, anyway,” she said with an awkward laugh. Her attempt at levity fell short as she noticed that Bull was still avoiding her gaze.

“It’s… different… for Qunari mages,” he faltered.

_He’s scared!_  The thought came suddenly and felt like truth.  _Why is he so scared?_

“We don’t… we honor them… but they’re… they’re not….” He paused, maddeningly stuck in his explanation.

“Not what, Bull?”

“They’re not free. Not even by Qunari standards… definitely not by your standards.”

“Go on.”

“They’re bound to an Arvaarad. That’s a… a kind of a Qunari Templar, I guess you might say. The Arvaarad commands the Saarebas as a sort of weapon… but alive and with magic. They’re chained and silenced when they’re not needed…”

“They’re slaves? In chains?!”

“No! They’re Qunari. They play their part, like everyone else does. They know what their role is… and they fill it. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that. And this is what you live by?”

“It is.”

Yaara’s voice dropped, low and dangerous.

“And this is the role you’d have me play? You’d have me in chains?”

Bull finally met her eyes as he took a deep breath. For the first time since she met him, she knew it was really him looking at her. The man behind the Ben Hassrath mask was making himself known.

And she knew, in that moment, just how deep his sadness ran.

“We’re all in chains, Boss, whether we know it or not.”


End file.
